A Friend in Need
by Eydie Munroe
Summary: After crashing the Delta Flyer while retrieving a Federation probe, Tom finds out why Chakotay has been so miserable the past few days. Written for VAMB's Secret Santa 2013 challenge.


**A Friend in Need**

**by Eydie Munroe**

Disclaimer: They're not mine, they never will be, and I'm really getting tired of saying it. I say Paramount/CBS need to have an auction and let the rest of us get in on the fun!

Note: This was written for VAMB's Secret Santa 2013 challenge. The request from CrlkSeasons: "Tom-Chakotay friendship story. Can be early grudging friendship, late season camaraderie, humorous, or serious fellowship while working on an assignment/task/mission of some kind." Enjoy!

* * *

"Paris, what are you doing here?"

Tom looked up from his console to see the first officer standing over him, a perturbed look on his face. "Just catching up on the course corrections Baytart made before I came on shift, sir."

Chakotay's eyes narrowed a bit. "I could have sworn I gave you today off."

"You did." Paris turned in his chair to fully face the other man. "But B'Elanna had to go into Engineering to deal with a problem during the injector retrofit, so–"

"So naturally, you thought you'd rework my entire shift schedule to suit your personal needs."

Tom's jaw dropped a little. Ever since their last stop at Talag Prime, the first officer had been testy as hell, and everybody had been walking on eggshells around him – even the captain. Not sure what was causing the problem, but not wanting to exacerbate it, Paris offered, "I can call Pablo back here if you like, sir."

Out of the corner of his eye, Chakotay noticed the captain stepping off the turbolift. "Leave it, for now," he grudgingly said, keeping his voice down as he made his way back to his seat.

_Like that's going to be the last I hear of it,_ Tom moaned to himself, turning back to his console once again.

"Mister Paris? What's our current heading?" he heard the captain ask.

"On course for the Alpha Quadrant, warp six."

From the command centre, Kathryn Janeway surveyed the bridge. She knew Paris was supposed to be off duty, but she also knew the reason why he was back here; she had been brainstorming with B'Elanna in Engineering for the past half hour. Everyone else that had been on the shift roster was in their places, and she settled back in her seat with a certain amount of comfort. After so many years on their own, she'd learned to take comfort in the little things in life and, while she trusted those that worked on the beta and gamma shifts, she always felt a little better seeing all of her senior staff in one place.

"Captain," Harry Kim suddenly cut into the quiet, "I'm picking up a weak Federation signature."

Every head on the bridge snapped around to look at him. "Source?" she asked.

Punching at his console to bring the most recent scans up onto the main viewer, he interpreted the map there. "I can't identify it yet, but it appears to be approximately sixteen light years to port."

"Time to intercept?" Chakotay called out.

"Three hours, fifty-two minutes," Paris replied.

"Adjust course," the captain ordered. "Harry, anything further?"

The ensign continued to work at his console. "It appears to be in some sort of asteroid field," he reported. "Heavy in tritanium and niterigon, with a density ten times that of Sol's asteroid belt."

The captain exchanged glances with her first officer. "Niterigon would explain why we can't get a clear reading." He nodded, but said nothing, and she bit down the urge to lash out at him. As grumpy as he'd been lately, silence was certainly better than the alternative. Looking back to Ops, she asked, "Can you determine what the object is?"

"Not yet," Kim told her.

She nodded, getting to her feet. "Continue your scans, and advise me as soon as you're able to get some more details."

"Aye, Captain."

* * *

More than two hours later, she was summoned back to the bridge. "Report."

"I'm now getting a better idea of what we've found, Captain," Kim told her as she made her way from the ready room over to his station. "It appears to be a probe of some kind. I can't tell the model or function yet, but it is showing signs of damage that could be interfering with our readings."

"Size?"

"Approximately three meters in diameter," Tuvok responded.

Chakotay was observing the readings from the console in the command centre. "Armaments?"

"Unable to determine at this time, sir."

The captain thought for a moment, seeing that they were quickly approaching the outer perimeter of the asteroid field. "How far inside that field is the signal?"

"Just over half a million kilometers, Captain."

She nodded as she thought. "Well, we need to go check it out." Looking up at her staff, she got an idea. "Chakotay, you and Tom get the Flyer ready for launch. We'll get as close as we can to the asteroid field, then it will be up to the two of you to find out what we're dealing with." She also hoped that by giving him something to do, it would help lift Chakotay's mood.

"Aye, Captain." He got up and headed for the lift, barely looking back to see if the pilot was following him.

Tom got up and followed him, gritting his teeth. _Great,_ he groused internally. _Just great._

* * *

The pair went through pre-flight checks mostly in silence, and launched when Voyager was within two thousand kilometres of the asteroid field. While dodging the asteroids meant that Tom had to be on top of his game, the flight path was easy enough that his mind started to wander again.

Sitting at the aft station, Chakotay continued to scan around them, trying to pinpoint the signature they were chasing. He was focusing on the readouts, trying to not let his own mind stray from his work and take him back to where he had been for the past week. He knew that he'd been a bear to everyone, but he couldn't help it. He'd tried working out to no avail, and whenever he'd try to talk to his spirit guide, she only gave him one-word answers that said nothing.

A beep from his readouts caught his attention. "Adjust course to one-eight-six mark two," he told Paris.

It had been so quiet that the pilot almost jumped out of his seat. "Aye, sir," he acknowledged, setting their new trajectory. Unable to take the quiet anymore, he asked, "Any further indication of what it is yet?"

"I would have said something if there was," Chakotay replied with barely reigned-in irritation.

Tom wished he could turn around, but at the moment, he needed to keep his eye on their flight path. "Something wrong, Chakotay?"

Chakotay's face hardened. "Nothing."

Paris couldn't help himself. "You could have fooled me."

Suppressing a growl and unclenching the fist that was forming against the console's surface, his companion told him, "Watch yourself, Paris."

He wanted desperately to find out what the problem was, but Tom realized that he could dig himself into a lot of trouble if he did. Focusing on his readouts and watching through the viewscreen, he announced, "Asteroid density is increasing. It's going to get a little bumpy here." Sure enough, as soon as he said it, he had to veer out of the path of an oncoming rock twice their size, which cut across their path at a dizzying speed. The inertial dampers strained against the fast move, but quickly compensated and settled them back into their seats. Paris let out a held breath. "Sorry about that – that one came out of nowhere." He checked his readings again, but found that he wasn't getting the information they had been seeing a minute ago. "Looks like whatever we're hunting for is starting to interfere with our sensors. I can't get a clear view of the field anymore."

They were only a few thousand kilometres away now. "Can you fly on visual?" Chakotay questioned.

_"Voyager to Delta Flyer,"_ the captain's voice rang out from the comm. _"We're picking up more instability in your area. It looks like the impulse engines are disturbing the equilibrium that was previously keeping those asteroids in place."_

"Acknowledged," Chakotay responded. "We were just discussing whether we can proceed. Paris says that our readings are becoming scrambled."

_"Enough to interfere with your flight path?"_

"Yes ma'am," Tom chimed in. "We just dodged one that didn't appear on sensors."

On Voyager's bridge, the captain turned to the other stations. "Options?"

Harry immediately piped up. "We could continue to take readings from here, and pass that sensor data on to the Flyer."

_"We could overlay that data on our own readings,"_ Tom agreed. _"Should give us a clearer idea of what's ahead."_

Janeway nodded, and told Kim, "Do it."

Harry quickly established a data stream to the Flyer, and started feeding the information. "Kim to Paris. Are you receiving?"

At the sound of a series of beeps, Tom punched in the command to receive the information from Voyager, and it only took a few moments to combine their information with what his own sensors were providing. "We're receiving, Harry. You just increased what we're able to see by about forty percent."

On his own console, Chakotay added the new readings to the erratic signal they were hunting. "It's also helped clear up the location of the Federation signal," he announced. "It may be harder to get to, but at least we can anticipate what's coming at us."

_"Acknowledged. We'll keep an eye on things here as well,"_ the captain replied. _"Be careful, you two."_

"Understood. Delta Flyer out."

The ride only continued to get rougher the closer they came to the signal, but eventually they managed to pinpoint it, on the surface of a large meteor that was half the size of Voyager. Chakotay fed the coordinates to the helm as he asked, "How close can you get us to it?"

"I should be able to get us right on top of it," Paris replied.

"Good. Move us within two hundred metres." He continued to watch as they neared their target, and Chakotay's eyes widened as it became clear what the object was. "I don't believe it."

"Believe what?" Tom asked as he dodged another moving asteroid.

The other man checked his readouts again. "It can't be." He then opened a comm channel. "Chakotay to Voyager."

_"Voyager here. Go ahead, Commander."_

"Captain, we're able to identify the signal. It's a probe…from the Enterprise."

There was a distinct pause as that information stunned the bridge crew. _"The Enterprise?"_ Then something suddenly occurred to her. _"Which one?" _

"Standby…I'm trying to get a visual…" Everyone on both ships watched as Tom maneuvered the Flyer over the target area, and the debris from the probe slowly came into view. The top right corner of the lettering was mangled, leaving only part of the word for them to read, but the registration number underneath was clear as day. No one said a word as the implication of what they'd found sunk in, broken when Chakotay murmured, "Looks like the original 1701."

_"What's its condition?"_ the captain asked.

"It's definitely impacted on the surface," Chakotay reported. His readings scrambled for a moment when Tom had to dodge another large meteor. "Hold us still, Paris!"

"Sorry, but that one didn't show up on sensors." Tom's teeth ground together. "There's enough radiation coming from the probe that I think it's interfering with the feed from Voyager."

"It's heavily damaged," the commander continued when the readings stabilized, "but still appears to be transmitting telemetry. That's the signal we've been picking up."

_"Transmitting for almost a hundred years?"_ Harry commented. _"That's incredible!"_

_"Agreed,"_ the captain interrupted him. _"Chakotay, what are the possibilities of recovering the probe?"_

"Fairly good, Captain. The probe is composed mainly of duranium and tritanium, and it doesn't look like the rock that it crashed on contains any of them. We should be able to use transporters to lock onto those elements and beam it into the Flyer's cargo hold."

_"Any chance of radiation leakage?"_

"Some," he replied, "but it's low. A level six forcefield around the hold should be enough to protect us until we can get back to Voyager."

_"Understood. Proceed with the recovery operation, Commander."_

"Acknowledged. Chakotay out."

While Chakotay set up the transport parameters to beam what was left of the Enterprise's probe up into the cargo hold, Tom kept an eye out for rogue asteroids. Their movement had slowed since the Flyer took up a stationary position over the debris field, but there were some still moving quickly enough to cause damage. Chakotay initiated transport, and once it was complete, scanned the area once again. "Looks like we got all of it," he said aloud, some of his previous gruffness replaced by the satisfaction of completing this part of their mission. "Let's get out of here."

"Aye, sir."

Paris slowly turned their craft around and started to make their way back, but the second they moved, it stirred the asteroids up around them once again. Despite his careful eye and their sensors, they were sideswiped in a matter of seconds. The Flyer was slammed hard into an asteroid they had been skirting around, throwing both its passengers into the starboard side of the cabin.

When Tom came to, the first thing he noticed was that there was no telltale sign of air escaping. The second thing was that he was laying on the transparent aluminum that was usually the starboard viewport, and underneath it he could see the rock of the asteroid they'd hit. With a groan, he picked up his head and looked around, absently noticing after the fact that both his arms appeared to be working. A small distance away, Chakotay was in a similar position, but hadn't come around yet. As Tom's head began to clear, he finally heard the call from the comm. _"Delta Flyer, do you read?"_ the captain's voice pleaded in a tone that was about one step below panic. _"Please respond."_

After getting his bearings, he pulled himself up to sit, and managed to reach up above his head to where the nearest panel was. "Paris here," he said with a shaky voice.

_"What's your status, Lieutenant?"_ the captain asked, her voice filled with relief at the sound of his voice.

"Banged up," he told her, "but mobile." He crawled over to Chakotay as she inquired about her first officer. After finding a strong pulse, he added, "He's alive, but unconscious." Tom started to search around him for the emergency medkit, and he asked, "What happened?"

_"One of the meteors that was heading past you collided with another, larger one and split it into two,"_ she told them. _"One of the pieces collided with you as you were passing it."_

Finally finding the medkit, Tom flipped open the tricorder and ran it over Chakotay's body. "Well that explains why it came out of nowhere." Now able to see what was wrong with Chakotay, he breathed a deep breath as he sat back on his heels. "Chakotay's going to be okay, but he's got a concussion and some fractures that the Doc will need to take care of."

_"Understood. We've tried to scan you, but the probe is now interfering with our readings. How's the Flyer?"_

"Standby." Tom managed to get to his feet, then tried to figure out how to access panels that were now above his head. Crawling forward into the pilot's area, he managed to brace himself up against the frame in a way that kept both his hands free to work. He couldn't believe his luck. "We've got internal power and life support," he told them, "but we're not going anywhere. The starboard nacelle took the brunt of our impact, and impulse engines are offline. And the forcefield in the cargo hold is non-operative."

He could hear the captain's sigh through the comm. _"Alright, sit tight while we find a way to get you out of there."_

"Understood."

The next thing he did was to move Chakotay into a slightly more comfortable position, away from the cold viewport to an area that was warmer, and covered him with a blanket. Then while he waited for Voyager to get back to them with a plan, Tom took an inventory of what was working and what was out of commission. Other than the fact that they were lying on their side on the surface of a meteor the size of a large starship, the ship was in remarkably good condition. The majority of the damage was the nacelle itself. _B'Elanna isn't going to be happy,_ he thought to himself with a small grin, _but at least she isn't going to kill me._

A moan from the other side of the deck caught his attention, and he carefully made his way over to his patient. "Take it easy," he advised to the man who was trying to push himself up. "You've got some broken ribs."

Determined to sit up, Chakotay pushed with the arm on his good side, not really noticing that Paris was helping him get upright. He collapsed back against what was usually the ceiling of the crew compartment, breath heavy in his chest as the pain of his ribs hit him. "Damn, that hurts…"

"You've also got a concussion," Paris informed him, "but it's not too bad. Will probably give you a headache, but not much else."

Chakotay tried to open his eyes, but squeezed them shut again right away. "Not probably…" he ground out through gritted teeth.

Tom pressed a hypospray into his neck. "How's that?"

It took a few moments, but the pains in his side and his head started to abate. "Better, thanks." When he felt ready, Chakotay cautiously opened his eyes again, and was now able to take in their new surroundings. "What happened?"

As he explained what had happened, Paris scanned him again. "Now we wait until the cavalry shows up."

Chakotay's head fell back against the wall behind him. "At least you were the one driving this time. Can't blame me."

Despite the tension earlier between them, Tom laughed. "Yeah, your record doesn't need any more hits. The captain would never let you on a shuttle again." Plugging the hand scanner back into the tricorder, he said, "Well the fractures aren't severe, but it's enough that you'll need a trip to Sickbay when we get back. For now, just relax and try not to move around a whole lot."

"Thanks."

As Chakotay took a few deep breaths to deal with his injuries, Tom stood up and picked his way across the cabin to the panel that Chakotay had been working on before their crash. "The cargo hold didn't rupture," he announced as he continued to glean information on the ship's condition, "but we've got some radiation to contend with."

Chakotay's eyes slid closed again. "How bad?"

"Well, let's just say that we're not going feel like eating anytime soon," Paris told him.

"Can't you ever give a straight answer?" the older man snapped at him.

"You'd rather hear that you're going to be barfing your guts out within ten hours?" Tom shot back at him.

Trying to get a hold on his irritation, Chakotay questioned, "Can we transport the probe off the ship?"

Paris shook his head. "Transporters are down." He could practically hear the growl coming from the other side of the crew cabin, and had had just about enough of the anger that was being thrown in his direction. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Mind your own business, Paris."

Tom shook his head. "Uh uh. If I've pissed you off, I have the right to know."

Chakotay tried to draw breath to yell, but was rewarded with a sharp stab of pain in his side that broke through the meds he'd been given. As he waited for it to pass, he realized what Tom had said, and that he'd been unfair to the man. "It's not you," he said simply, and then after a while added, "It's personal."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No."

"You sure?" Tom tried again. "Might help."

Chakotay tried to deflect him. "You're not a counsellor, Paris."

"Neither are you," the pilot told him as he made his way back over, "but you've always been one for the rest of us." Then he decided to take a chance. "What's got you so mad?"

It took a while, but eventually Chakotay finally told him, "I got a letter from my sister."

Tom felt his heart freeze in his chest. Just over a week before, they had received the very first data stream from the Alpha Quadrant, and he knew that many people had received letters, mostly from family and friends that hadn't been contacted in time to be included in the initial letters they'd received through the Hirogen network. B'Elanna had told him that Chakotay's family had all been killed, and as far as he knew, his sister was supposed to be dead. "Your sister? But I thought…"

Chakotay nodded. "So did I." He thought about how much he wanted to divulge, but even in his angered state, he realized that he needed to address what he was feeling. "Apparently, she survived the Cardassians after all."

There was a long moment before Tom spoke again. "Isn't her being alive a good thing?"

"It is."

"But?"

Chakotay sighed. "Just the idea of what she's been through is driving me crazy." When he saw that Tom wasn't following him, he recounted what had been in her letter. "She was discovered on Cardassia Prime at the end of the war, and had been badly injured. Somehow she was shuttled back to Earth for treatment, and she was in hospital for more than six months."

Tom considered this. "Did she say what she was treated for?"

"No. But if she was discovered on Cardassia…" This was why he'd been so emotional over the last week. In his mind, he couldn't stop imagining scene after scene of what she might have been subject to, everything from being experimented on to being forced into slavery. The worst was when it had occurred to him that she might have been sexually assaulted. The fury it stoked in him made him want to crawl out of his skin, cursing his luck of being stuck so far away when he could have been killing those that had made her suffer, or saving her from suffering in the first place.

The sadness and rage that he felt was on full display to Paris now, and not for the first time, he wondered just how the man had survived everything he'd been through in life. He settled down next to him. "Did she tell you what happened?"

Chakotay shook his head slightly. "No. That's what's so frustrating. She said that after she got out of the hospital, she'd heard a story in the news about us, after it was announced that we'd managed to contact them. It didn't mean anything to her at first, until Starfleet declassified the part about some of us being Maquis. Since she'd never heard what happened to me either way, she started to make inquiries, and at the same time, Starfleet started trying to find our relatives. It took over a year before they managed to connect." He rubbed at his temple, feeling a bit dizzy. "When she was finally able to send a message, all she said was that she'd been rescued from Cardassia, that she's fine now, and that she's trying to decide what to do with her life."

It didn't take a detailed explanation for Tom to realize what had been bothering Chakotay. He knew he'd feel the same way if one of his sisters had disappeared like that. "I wish I knew what to say," he offered.

The commander's eyes closed again as he hoped to lessen the dizziness. "I don't expect you to understand."

Tom thought about it for a while. "Why didn't you talk to anybody about it?" When Chakotay didn't answer, he suggested, "What about B'Elanna?"

"She's had a hard enough time dealing with our friends being dead," he said.

The memory of trying to help his love through one of the hardest times of her life may have been a while in the past now, but it didn't make it any less painful for Tom. He nodded, knowing that she'd finally found some measure of acceptance, and that hearing this now would only fire up similar anger and frustration on her friend's behalf. "What about the captain?"

Chakotay grimaced, and admitted through a clenched jaw, "She's got enough to worry about. And…we aren't exactly on the best of terms."

Tom was surprised. It had been nearly a year since their encounter with the Equinox, and at the time, it had been obvious to everyone that things had been pretty rough between the command team. But as the months went on, the pair seemed to have moved past it and had settled back into their friendship, with casual discussion and joking returning, much to the relief of the senior staff. "I didn't realize. I thought things had gotten better."

They lapsed into silence again for a little while, Tom considering what Chakotay had told him, while Chakotay tried to deal with the growing pain in his head. "I know it doesn't mean much," Paris told him, "but I'm sorry."

"Thanks." Chakotay now felt bad for being so miserable. "I owe you an apology," he said. "I've been really unfair to you this week."

Taking out anger on others was something that Tom Paris did understand. He'd grown up with a father who seemed to know how to do little else. "No big deal. I'm used to being a punching bag for others."

New guilt stabbed at Chakotay. "Tom…"

Paris shook his head. "It's okay, Chakotay. Really." He thought about what to say next very carefully. "Look, I know that you and I are not exactly the best of friends, but I also know how hard it is when you have something weighing on you that you can't talk to anybody about. I may not have gone through what you're dealing with, but I've been through enough shit in my day to appreciate an open ear. If you want to talk about it, I really am willing to listen." He grinned. "Besides, it's not like we're going anywhere for a while."

While they waited, Tom listened as Chakotay spoke of his worries for his sister, and his anguish at not being there to help her. Old guilt rose to the surface, feelings that he'd thought long buried coming to the forefront. They also spoke about their own relationship, and how it had taken each of them years to fully trust the other. For Tom, Chakotay's determination to help B'Elanna through her depression had finally shown him that her trust in her friend was not misplaced, and he'd started to see what B'Elanna had discovered when she'd joined the Maquis. For Chakotay, it had taken an act of rebellion on Tom's part to show him the pilot's real values when he tried to destroy a Monean oxygen refinery. And while he'd agreed with the captain that his actions had been wrong and against Starfleet regulations, Chakotay couldn't help but understand the compulsion Paris had felt to do what he thought was right.

It took more than six hours for Voyager to get to them, eventually plowing their way to the Flyer by using their deflector to repel asteroids that were in the way. Once back on board, the Doctor treated them and ordered rest, which of course was ignored as there was a retrieved piece of history to be studied. To their amazement, the probe was not only continuing to transmit back to the Alpha Quadrant, but the damage to its data banks was less than half, and it gave them more information on upcoming space than they could have dreamed of. As a result, the captain was so pleased that she gave both Tom and Chakotay the next day off, unknowingly giving the Doctor what he'd wanted in the first place. And it didn't escape her notice that Chakotay's demeanor seemed to have softened since their return. She hoped that whatever had happened, it was helping him deal with issues that he didn't seem to want to talk to her about.

Chakotay found Tom standing in the holodeck, a half-formed scene surrounding him as he punched commands into the control console. "I thought the captain gave you the day off," he said to announce his presence.

Paris smiled, his eyes focused on his work. "She did. I've been toying with an idea for a new program for the last few weeks."

Looking around him, the first officer honestly couldn't figure out what Tom was going for. "What's it supposed to be?"

"It's a surprise." The younger man grinned as he paused his work. Turning away from the console, he asked, "What can I do for you?"

"I have something for you." Chakotay handed him a padd. "A sneak preview of tomorrow's staff meeting."

As Tom scrolled through the data, he couldn't quite nail it down. "What is it?"

"Raw data from the Enterprise probe's memory banks. Seven is working on turning it into star charts right now, but I thought you might like a copy." When Paris looked up at him, he added, "I know it's not twentieth century, but it's an historical find nonetheless."

Tom was touched. "I appreciate that. Thanks." He glanced down at the screen again, now seeing it for what it was, complete with images of areas that the probe had travelled through. Not only was it a personal gesture, but he was thrilled at the prospect of having some sort of indication of what was to come. He looked up again to see Chakotay scanning the partial program around them, and needed to ask, "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay." When he didn't get a response, Chakotay turned back to find Tom watching him carefully. "Okay, not _okay_," he confessed with a slight smile, "but better than I was."

"Good." After observing him for a moment, he suggested, "Try not to worry about her, Chakotay. She's alive, and she knows now that you are too. That's more than you had before." Then he added, "She'll tell you when she's ready."

Chakotay contemplated his words, then offered his hand. "Thanks, Tom."

Paris took his hand and shook it. "Any time."

As he watched him leave, Tom Paris realized that he had become friends with the man who had wanted to kill him six years earlier. And back in his quarters, while on his first successful visit with his animal guide in more than a week, Chakotay realized that he didn't have to shoulder his own burdens alone, along with those of everyone else on Voyager.


End file.
